Is it time to reduce the price of Autopilot?

[sparkypete]

When I ordered my Model S I couldn't justify the extra price of Autopilot for the few times I'd find it useful (I live in the country with windy roads and few road markings).

I see that the Nissan Leaf now includes their version, ProPilot, for just £400 (aroung $500) and it does all that I'd want from Autopilot - i.e. adaptive cruise control.

Even Golfs now have adaptive cruise control as standard on some trim levels.

I also don't want to pay for Autopilot on this car and then have to pay again when I upgrade to a new one every 2 years or so.

Now that Autopilot R&D costs are being shared by many more owners as a result of Model 3, surely the price per user can be competitive with other manufacturers.

Maybe it can be more granular to split out parking, lane changing, etc.

Ideally, I think that these additional software features should be 'rentware'. So I should be able to pay a monthly amount to cover the features I've opted into. If I then get a CPO, rent or buy another car, I could then log in with my Tesla Id and the car would give me my features along with my driver profile.

 

[jaguar36]

With so many folks claiming AP is a must have for their Tesla if anything I think they would be leaning towards raising the price rather than lowering it.

 

[democappy]

I think some of the mistake you are making is treating adaptive cruise control like it is equal to AP. It just isn't. My wife's MINI has adaptive cruise control (for $1k extra) and it sucks even compared to just what Tesla's adaptive cruise control can do. That said, I do agree the adaptive cruise control is the most useful day to day part of AP for me.

I don't think "rentware" is ever going to be a concept that really makes sense for a car. You are basically saying make it more expensive for people who will own their car for 8 years so someone who wants to sell a car every 2 years can get fancy stuff cheaper. You would also have to make it more expensive overall to make up for the lost time value of money by having it paid out in the future versus all at once up front. It just doesn't make sense. It would just change your complaint to be about how expensive the monthly rental fee is.

 

[chillaban]

There's a huge difference in that none of the competing solutions get better (if anything they get worse as cars change shapes and appearances years down the road), nor do any of the competing solutions add new features via software updates. In some sense you're prepaying for future deliverables.

 

[Destiny1701]

There is a very good solution which came out in 2017 by MB:

Others are catching up fast. Tesla had promised traffic light recognition 2 yrs ago. Nope. They promised automatic lane changing without user intervention in the event of an issue ahead. Nope. They promised AP2 would surpass AP1 in April 2017. That has yet to occur. AP1 still sees vehicles in all 3 lanes with half the cameras.

 

[⚡️ELECTROMAN⚡️]

Others are catching up fast.

Good.

I definitely think AP is too expensive for it's current abilities, but I doubt they will lower the price.

 

[mtndrew1]

I think they should make a lower tier of just TACC for maybe $1500, particularly for the Model 3.

I think such a feature is now standard equipment on cars as pedestrian as the Toyota Corolla. If all you care about is TACC, five grand is a steep ask on a $36k car.

 

[chillaban]

There is a very good solution which came out in 2017 by MB:

Others are catching up fast. Tesla had promised traffic light recognition 2 yrs ago. Nope. They promised automatic lane changing without user intervention in the event of an issue ahead. Nope. They promised AP2 would surpass AP1 in April 2017. That has yet to occur. AP1 still sees vehicles in all 3 lanes with half the cameras.

Have you actually driven it compared to watching a video by a media friendly in a manufacturer provided car?

I got a weekend test drive of the 2017 E class when cross shopping it, and frankly other than it being smooth and willing to ram into anything as long as it does so smoothly, it's not at all similar to AP/TACC's abilities. It frequently accelerated into cars cutting in and took around 2 seconds to respond to a change in lead car.

 

[Destiny1701]

Have you actually driven it compared to watching a video by a media friendly in a manufacturer provided car?

I got a weekend test drive of the 2017 E class when cross shopping it, and frankly other than it being smooth and willing to ram into anything as long as it does so smoothly, it's not at all similar to AP/TACC's abilities. It frequently accelerated into cars cutting in and took around 2 seconds to respond to a change in lead car.

Maybe it was faulty as my buddy has one as of Jan 2018 and it performs quite well. Updates perhaps? He swears it’s quite close to AP2 as he’s driven my car. It may not be 100% on par but again, they are catching up fast AP was around since 2014...it’s been 4yrs now with not much advancement.

 

[chillaban]

Maybe it was faulty as my buddy has one as of Jan 2018 and it performs quite well. Updates perhaps? He swears it’s quite close to AP2 as he’s driven my car. It may not be 100% on par but again, they are catching up fast AP was around since 2014...it’s been 4yrs now with not much advancement.

It worked fairly well out on the open road, it totally depends on how you use it and where you use it. For California rush hour commuting it was quite unacceptable. Left huge gaps compared to AP1/AP2, delayed reactions to cut-ins, etc etc etc.

I was rather disappointed because they had the most sensors and touted the most self-driving testing of anyone selling cars to consumers, but the product itself simply didn't live up to the hype. If you really think AP since 2015 (not 2014) hasn't advanced much, that's surprising.

 

[Destiny1701]

It worked fairly well out on the open road, it totally depends on how you use it and where you use it. For California rush hour commuting it was quite unacceptable. Left huge gaps compared to AP1/AP2, delayed reactions to cut-ins, etc etc etc.

I was rather disappointed because they had the most sensors and touted the most self-driving testing of anyone selling cars to consumers, but the product itself simply didn't live up to the hype. If you really think AP since 2015 (not 2014) hasn't advanced much, that's surprising.

I’ll ask my friend again about traffic

It’s advanced but stalled and reversed actually when Tesla lost Mobileye. Then has spent the last 2yrs slowly gaining back lost ground. I was fortunate to enjoy AP1 for 2016 and in some respects I still miss the smoothness and confidence compared to AP2’s finicky ‘drunk’ behaviour at times. Far less now than previously but still there. Given it’s now 2018 and AP2 is on par (not all aspects) with AP1 means there has been little to no major progress in terms of functionality since Mobil eye left. Those who have used or use AP1 could probably confirm.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Elon has also mentioned that a vastly improved autopilot is in final stages of approval, and should be released soon.

Maybe an autopilot light version could be made available, but Tesla has already done the expensive part by equipping all their vehicles with the hardward necessary for advanced self driving capabilities. Hard to justify to them selling the OTA upgrade cheaply when they have proactively installed all the expensive sensor suite.

 

[P85Dave]

Elon has also mentioned that a vastly improved autopilot is in final stages of approval, and should be released soon.

Maybe an autopilot light version could be made available, but Tesla has already done the expensive part by equipping all their vehicles with the hardward necessary for advanced self driving capabilities. Hard to justify to them selling the OTA upgrade cheaply when they have proactively installed all the expensive sensor suite.

I thought "Autopilot Light Version" has already been made available.

 

[iffatall]

I think EAP should come standard with MS. AP is (still) pretty much a distinguishing feature of Tesla, and making it standard in their flagship will make it stand out, and will be very good for publicity, public perception, and customer good will.
FSD can continue to be add on for $3000. More people will buy FSD if EAP were included. So that way they can still make some free profit. (JK)

 

[MIT_S60]

I think EAP should come standard with MS. AP is (still) pretty much a distinguishing feature of Tesla, and making it standard in their flagship will make it stand out, and will be very good for publicity, public perception, and customer good will.
FSD can continue to be add on for $3000. More people will buy FSD if EAP were included. So that way they can still make some free profit. (JK)

For the most part it does, it's just a way for Tesla to raise the base price of the car without raising the base price of the car (and for a handful to get a pretty good discount if they really don't need AutoPilot).

 

[whitex]

Elon has also mentioned that a vastly improved autopilot is in final stages of approval, and should be released soon.

Elon also mentioned a year ago that a new better browser was in beta about to be released. He also said "3 months probably, 6 months for sure" for FSD, and that was last summer. He says a lot of things, most don't materialize anymore.

 

[aronth5]

Tesla is providing over the air updates which is a difference maker. How much that extra service should cost is certainly open to debate but it certainly should be considered in this discussion. Plus as mentioned previously Tesla needs to cover hardware costs.

 

[whitex]

Tesla is providing over the air updates which is a difference maker.

Do you consider it a positive or negative difference. Getting a new feature two years into your ownership is great, but if the feature is something every other car in your price range already had 2 years ago, is it really so great to get it two years later?

 

[aronth5]

Do you consider it a positive or negative difference. Getting a new feature two years into your ownership is great, but if the feature is something every other car in your price range already had 2 years ago, is it really so great to get it two years later?

I think most would consider it a positive difference. Check back in 8-9 months when owners have had several updates and then compare to what the competition has since their features will not have changed. Only time will tell.

 

[gavine]

Tesla had promised traffic light recognition 2 yrs ago. Nope. They promised automatic lane changing without user intervention in the event of an issue ahead. Nope. They promised AP2 would surpass AP1 in April 2017.

Did they PROMISE those things or just say it was in the works or probably will be available within a certain time frame?